☝️ ETH devs working hard to launch Shanghai upgrade by March

☝️ ETH devs working hard to launch Shanghai upgrade by March 🎩 65% of USDC reserves are held in US treasury bills 💀 Four crypto billionaires mysteriously die in November

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Now, for what's been happening out there:

☝️ ETH devs working hard to launch Shanghai upgrade by March 

🎩 65% of USDC reserves are held in US treasury bills

💀 Four crypto billionaires mysteriously die in November

ETH devs working hard to launch Shanghai upgrade by March

ETH core devs are planning to upgrade the network sometime in March, and give users back the coins that have been locked up since The Merge back in September.

The new upgrade is codenamed 'Shanghai', and the developers are aiming to get a public test network up and running by the end of February.

It's a bold move, considering we still don't know if the network will actually be ready in time for its March deadline. But that hasn't stopped the devs from working hard to make sure they complete their mission.

The upgrade is going to be focused solely on withdrawals and code changes that prioritize the ability to withdraw funds. The possibility of adding Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF), a much-expected improvement to the blockchain's programming environment, was put on hold due to fears it might cause a delay.

65% of USDC reserves are held in US treasury bills

According to a report by Circle (the issuer of USDC) on Nov. 30, 2022, almost two thirds of USDC reserves ($43.4 billion or 65%) were held in US Treasury bills.

Circle holds these reserves to back the 43.23 billion USDC in circulation, of which $19.41 billion worth is held directly by Circle as treasury bills and the remaining $12.79 billion has been managed by BlackRock and put into Circle’s registered government money market fund – what they call a “win” for USDC users.

It seems that USDC users are getting the best of both worlds: a government-backed currency and a profit-generating fund. What could possibly go wrong? Well besides the fact that the government can always interfere with the issuance and circulation of USDC and that it’s dependent on the political climate and regulative environment, nothing much at all.

At least USDC users can rest assured that their funds are safe and secure. After all, who wouldn't trust the US government to keep their money safe?

Four crypto billionaires mysteriously die in November

Weird things happen all the time, but this is one of the strangest ones we've seen in a while. In less than a month, four crypto billionaires have died in what can only be described as suspicious circumstances.

First, Nikolai Mushegian, co-founder of the crypto lending platform MakerDAO and a key architect of the stablecoin concept, was found dead on a beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico just hours after he tweeted that intelligence agencies were planning to murder him, and calling his former girlfriend a spy.

It’s no surprise that this news caused a stir among the crypto community, with many speculating and debating whether or not it was just an unfortunate coincidence or something more sinister — conspiracy theories abound!

Javier Bosca, in the middle of Spain’s biggest probe into cryptocurrency fraud, was found dead in an apparent suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of a hotel in the Spanish resort town of Estepona. Though his death occurred only three weeks after him being released on €1 million bail, and he was also being brought into connection with dangerous Russian and Romanian mobsters based in Andalusia, who were among the investors affected by the alleged Ponzi scheme.

Just a day after this, Tiantian Kullander, co-founder of crypto company Amber Group and former employee at finance giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs also reportedly died “in his sleep”.

Then, Russian crypto billionaire Vyacheslav Taran was killed in a helicopter crash while flying from Lausanne, Switzerland, to Monaco. There were two passengers in the helicopter — Taran and his pilot — but one of them cancelled at the last minute, which some found odd.

All this in the space of a few weeks has definitely had people wondering what could be behind these deaths — especially considering these people were all related to the crypto world. November deaths have also coincidentally been the same month when crypto plunged to record lows, making some question if these deaths were related to the sudden market crash.